Andrew Scott's Elsinore to open BFI London Film Festival
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Elsinore is announced as the opening night film at this year's BFI London Film Festival (7-18 October), with its European premiere at the Southbank Centre yards from the National Theatre where many of its scenes are set.
- Andrew Scott stars as Ian Charleson in a drama depicting the actor's final months after an Aids diagnosis in 1986, reprising the role of Hamlet at age 40 while terminally ill, with septicaemia concealed from cast and audience as a sinus operation.
- Ian Charleson was drafted in by Richard Eyre in 1989 to take over Hamlet after Daniel Day-Lewis abruptly left the production; his six-week run was widely regarded as one of the finest stage Hamlets ever, and he died eight weeks after his final show — the first UK showbiz star to request Aids be listed as his cause of death.
- The day after Charleson's final performance, Ian McKellen refused the Evening Standard best actor award and gave his statuette to Charleson instead, a detail the film incorporates alongside Derek Jarman (played by David Dawson) and Charleson's doctor (Olivia Colman).
- Directed by Simon Stone and written by Stephen Beresford — reuniting with Scott 12 years after Pride — the cast also includes Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Monica Dolan, and Dickie Beau, who toured a one-man Charleson tribute for six years.
- BFI festival director Kristy Matheson called Scott's central performance "astounding"; the film has also been selected as a Toronto gala screening, with a predicted Telluride world premiere the week before, opening in the US on 20 November and the UK on 29 January.
Why it matters: Scott's performance is generating awards buzz partly because voters overlooked his All of Us Strangers work at both the Oscars and Baftas, making Elsinore a likely awards-season vehicle built around one of British theatre's most haunting real-life stories. The festival launch on 7 October feeds directly into a 20 November US release and 29 January UK release, giving the film prime positioning for the awards corridor.
Ask SkimNews
